


windows on the watchtower

by ninemoons42



Series: Stream of Stars [2]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Established Relationship, M/M, Military Ranks, Outer Space, Sequel, Space Fighter Pilots, Space Flight, Spaceships, Window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/"><b>cottoncandy_bingo</b></a>. Prompt: window. My card is <a href="http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	windows on the watchtower

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: window. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).

title: windows on the watchtower  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 2300  
fandoms: X-Men: First Class, Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Emma Frost, and cameos from both XMFC and BSG casts  
rating: PG-13  
notes: Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: window. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).  
Sequel to [what the wings meant](http://archiveofourown.org/works/440968), and dedicated to the same friends as the original - Nekosmuse, Afrocurl, VictoriaXavier, and Shaliara.

  
Charles falls out of sleep with a sharp short gasp. He can feel the adrenaline in every inch of his skin: prickling terrible rush, making him think of momentum and explosions and the panicked screams of friend and foe alike.

Slowly, half afraid, he opens his eyes – but all he sees is the ramshackle ceiling of his own quarters, the blank featureless unbroken walls of grating and stark sheet metal, and a uniform jacket that looks like it’s been hastily put back together, if the visible stitching on the sleeves is anything to go by.

Stitches scattered over the old but still sturdy fabric, like the stars he can’t see, not and still be within _Galactica_ – or _Pegasus_ , for that matter. There aren’t any windows in the personnel quarters, and there aren’t any in his. He’s long since gotten used to that; he’s been spaceside for most of his life, spaceside and confined.

Getting up is a struggle. His ribs hurt like fury and pull against his movements. He has to take a deep breath before and after he takes off his shirt – at which he takes a long moment to stare at the bandages wound tightly around his torso. At the livid bruising at his hips, a sickening-looking mix of deep purple and yellow-green.

He remembers, then, and he has to close his eyes briefly against the sheer terror of it, against the fear in the faces of his friends and his pilots and his crew and – oh, _frak_.

Charles propels himself to his feet, and just barely stops himself from groaning when the sudden movement sparks off fresh pain in what feels like every part of his body. Putting on his uniform is agony, but he manages it and storms out the door, down familiar corridors, the thought of his destination keeping him on his feet.

When he strides past the corridors leading down to the flight deck he sees the familiar window up ahead, the only one he can regularly look out of, and he’s not surprised when he glances out and sees the stars drifting past – but he has to do a double-take when he recognizes the ship flying in close formation with _Galactica_.

The first rule of the fleet is this: _Colonial One_ does not fly anywhere near _Galactica_ or _Pegasus_ for any reason. _Colonial One_ flies among the civilian ships, and _only_ among the civilian ships. _Colonial One_ is always separated from the battlestars, a divide both symbolic and practical, even when it is always accompanied by its own dedicated Viper squadron and a small group of retrofitted fighter-type vessels.

And yet here it is, so close that Charles thinks he could reach out through the window and touch it.

It’s hard to take his eyes off that ship; it’s hard to turn away – but he manages it somehow and he double-times it past startled civilians and uniformed figures alike; he ignores the shocked whispers and the belated salutes that spring up like wildfire in his wake, and he bursts into CIC, mouth already open to demand an explanation: “What do you think you’re doing – ”

“Sir,” someone says – he thinks it might be Helo – and the buzz of the room falls silent, as all eyes swing to him and as he, in turn, takes in the scene.

Starbuck and Apollo and Athena are clustered around one end of the central console, ghost-light casting surprised shadows onto their faces. Dualla and Muñoz are wide-eyed next to the DRADIS stations.

Frost is sitting near one of the communications relays, somehow managing to smirk and look serene at the same time.

And in the middle of the room, seemingly oblivious to the startled men and women surrounding him, is the President of the Twelve Colonies. Hands clasped behind his back, he scrutinizes the nearest navigation display. As Charles watches, Erik Lehnsherr leans closer and traces a finger over the projection of red lines showing the fleet’s current heading.

He shouldn’t be calm.

_He shouldn’t be here._

All the same, seeing him aboard _Galactica_ brings an odd kind of comfort, and Charles feels something release in his chest. He keeps one eye on Erik’s ramrod-straight stance as he makes his way down to his XO, and says, more calmly than he really feels, “Explain.”

Emma gets to her feet and leans against the back of her chair. “Look, there’s no denying you did something good, something right, when you flew out to rally the troops – that was some beautiful shooting – but sir. With all due respect. _What the hell were you thinking?_ ”

Charles looks her squarely in the eyes. “You said it yourself: it needed doing. There wasn’t anyone else to send. I rolled the hard six.”

“You did. You brought everyone we still had back home, which is far more than we can say of many other battles that we’ve fought and lost and won. But tell me, Xavier, do you think it was any fun for us to watch you get shot up?”

It comes back to him, as it did when he awoke: maneuvering to get out of the dogfight with the stragglers from Apollo’s squadron and the rebel Cylons who answered to a Number Six as their CAG, seeing the _Galactica_ flight deck as though looking through a window into the ship that was protecting so many lives, lining up for the landing – and then spinning and spinning, knocked off course by a strafing run.

He remembers spinning, end over end and out into space again, nearly passing out from pulling all the gees, getting beaten up in his own cockpit for his troubles.

He knows who shot the final Heavy Raiders off his back – he clearly remembers Darkholme and Adler and Cassidy screaming over the comms. He knows that it was sheer pure luck that got him back onto the flight deck, fighting nausea and the sticky blood on his face that was already growing cold, a dark smear against the glass of his helmet. A bumpy landing, and seeing a flash of Erik’s face in one of the airlock-enabled entrances. Seeing the sudden flare of recognition and shock in those eyes, because everyone in the fleet and _especially_ the President knew what the Admiral’s personal Viper looked like.

Everything after that is dark and hushed and cloudy, though he does retain a dim idea of someone taking his hand in a crushing grip.

Charles glances at his hand.

Emma doesn’t miss a beat, and shakes her head; a rueful smile quirks up the corner of her mouth. “I suppose that answers my question. I’m not fool enough to tell you that you’re not allowed to do anything of the sort ever again. It’d be nice, and I would really appreciate it, but I know you. We’ve been everywhere, you and I. You’ll always be a fool.”

“Isn’t it your responsibility to stop me when I go over the line?” Charles asks.

Her smile widens. “Unlike many of my duties to this fleet, I rather think that one’s been passed on to another.” Her eyes flick over his shoulder. “Now, I’m going back to work.”

Charles watches her turn smartly on her heel and join Athena and the others; he watches her lead them deftly out of CIC. The discussion he’d interrupted starts up again, gathering Helo in as they walk out the door, and he can hear them discussing fuel reserves and the fabrication facilities on the _Pegasus_.

He sweeps his eyes around. Most of the crew have their eyes down, sunk in the work of keeping this ship alive, of keeping this entire fleet flying. Those who are looking up seem to be looking past the walls of the ship: as though the displays were windows that could help them see and plan and do their work, as though they could see some kind of hope out of those windows.

Charles envies them that, and has to settle for looking down at his feet. He’d been almost sure that all of the hope he’s ever had has been burned out of him.

Well, maybe there is still a little left.

When there’s a quiet step in his direction, he tries to fight off the smile that comes, unbidden, to his mouth.

To no avail, though, because he feels himself leaning slightly in Erik’s direction, as Erik leans slightly in his – until their shoulders are brushing, just barely.

There’s a tiny amount of warmth between them, and Charles appreciates it even as he curses himself for a fool – because where else would Erik be but on his injured side? What else would Erik be doing but protecting him, just as Charles spends every waking moment and many of the ones he ought to be sleeping in thinking incessantly of ways to keep the fleet going, to keep protecting Erik?

“You going to ream me out too,” Charles says, after a while, because he has to ask, can’t help but ask.

“Is there a need for it? Or perhaps the right question is, do you want me to?” Erik says.

“You’d have the right of it.”

Erik smiles at that, and shakes his head. “Walk with me, Admiral?”

“Ordering me around inside my own ship, Mister President.” But Charles turns, and he only winces a little when the movement pulls at his bruises.

“So few windows,” Erik says after several minutes’ walking.

“I know where the nearest one is,” Charles says, and he threads a course through the starboard hangar deck, past Joe’s – and finally they turn into an empty corridor to come across a small pane of reinforced glass, just large enough for a handful of people to peer through.

“Why here, of all places?” Erik asks quietly. He has his fingertips against the window, as if to reach out to the stars and space and the ships moving around and beyond _Galactica_ ’s orbit. “An oversight? A weak point?”

“If it’s a weak point, it’s one I’m glad to have, and it’s one I’ll willingly defend,” Charles says, and he thinks of all the times he’s walked away from the pilots at the bar, only to run into at least one crewman at this spot. “People come here. Pilots, hangar crew, civilians. I know Dr Cottle comes here to smoke after an operation.”

“Successful ones.”

“Especially after the successful ones,” Charles says. Then he takes a deep breath, heedless of his aching ribs, and turns to the other man. “I did what I had to do.”

“And I’m glad you did; as your XO said, you brought everyone back who could still be brought back,” Erik says, still looking out the window. “All of the Cylon pilots, all of the human ones. Do you know who was flying in that sortie? One of my people – or she used to be, before she asked me for permission to enlist with you and yours.” He smiles. “Angel Salvadore, call sign – ”

“Call sign _Hellfire_ , yes,” Charles says, smiling back. “She’s a good soldier, a good fighter.”

“If that’s so, then I’m glad.” Charles watches Erik turn his back on the window, leaning against the glass. “Though I can’t precisely say the same for the part where I almost watched you turn yourself into a skid mark on the flight deck. I know what blood on glass looks like, Charles.”

There’s no one here with them, so Charles goes to stand in front of Erik and takes both of his hands. “I saw you, too,” he says, quietly, looking at their interlaced fingers. “I – I really didn’t want you to see me like that. Didn’t want you to see me land badly, like I’d never been in a frakking Viper before.”

Erik looks torn between smiling and frowning; the lines in his face are deep and beautiful and strange. “You were apologizing all the way to med bay, actually. I was there.”

“You were holding my hand,” Charles says. “I felt it.”

Erik looks over his shoulder after a few quiet moments; the hum of the ship’s engines wraps around them, a safe space in a surrounding sea of stars. “I wish I could order you to stay safe. To keep yourself alive, and not just for my sake.” He sighs and looks back at their hands. “That would be a very impractical thing to do, though. Not to mention it would be very hypocritical of me. I’ve already as good as declared I’ll go to war myself if anything happens to my people, or to yours. I just – I suppose I wish there was some way we could fight these wars and be assured we’d come back out alive every time.” He sighs. “Wishful thinking. Dangerous. What few dreams I’ve left, are here.”

When Erik squeezes his hands Charles grips back just as tightly. “I thought I’d lost all hope, and I thought I would hate it if I learned how to hope again. But if I’m not alone, if you have something like that to keep you going – no matter how little there is – then, then it’s all right. I’ll do the same. I’ll hang on to it, with you. And help you hang on to yours, even if – even when – I have to pay a higher and higher price for it every time.”

“We’ll both pay that price,” Erik says, low and fierce and determined, “whether we despair of it or be glad of it. We’ll pay it together. Because we’re together, because we’re not alone – we have each other. We have this ship. We have this fleet.”

“We do,” Charles says, and it feels like they move together, toward each other, for a stolen kiss, a brief moment of warmth.

Outside the window, the stars.  



End file.
